Reviews: Barnes, Steven

Domino Falls —
Steven Barnes & Tananarive Due
Devil's Wake, book 2

Freak
Day, when the infected turned on their former friends, neighbours,
and family members, ended the comfortable old world. Mere weeks after
Freak Day, most humans are either dead or infected. The few untainted
survivors struggle to survive and to avoid the infection even one
bite can transmit.

Kendra
lost her family to Freak Day and its aftermath. No person can survive
alone for long; luckily for Kendra, she has five reliable allies in
Terry, Piranha, Sonia, Dean, and Darius. Even better, the six teens
may have found the refuge they need in Domino Falls, one of the few
towns to survive Freak Day.

Devil’s Wake —
Steven Barnes & Tananarive Due
Devil's Wake, book 1

2012’s
Devil’s
Wake
is the first volume in Steven Barnes and Tananarive Due’s Devil’s
Wake series.

It
didn’t take long for the plague of angry ghouls to sweep across America,
because to be bitten by one of the infected is to become one of the
infected. There is no cure and there is no vaccine. The only reliable
prophylaxis is preparedness or simple dumb luck.

Given
enough time, even the prepared run into something unexpected. Given
time, the best luck in the world runs out.

Zulu Heart —
Steven Barnes
Bilalistan, book 2

Steven
Barnes’ Zulu
Heart
is a follow-up to 2002’s Lion’s
Blood.
It is also the final volume (to date) in Barnes’ Bilalistan
alternate history.

Four
years after the events of Lion’s Blood,
Walid Kai’s long-delayed marriage to his Zulu fiancée, Nandi, is finally at
hand. This could become complicated … and not just due to Kai’s
conflicted relationship with Nandi’s Zulu nation. Kai is already
married to Lamiya. Will Nandi and Lamiya will cooperate … or
quarrel?1. As if that weren’t enough drama, Kai’s position as
Walid, or leader, is going to pose even greater challenges.

Lion’s Blood —
Steven Barnes
Bilalistan, book 1

In
Steven Barnes’ 2002 novel Lion’s
Blood,
little Aiden O’Dere is rescued from a dismal life in a hidden Irish
village when bold Viking entrepreneurs provide Aiden and those
members of his village who survive the negotiation process (including
his mother and his sister, but not his father) with free
transportation to Bilalistan1, far across the ocean. There, the
kindly Muslims provide the Irish with room and board, in exchange for
such duties as their new masters deem appropriate.

Aiden
proves inexplicably ungrateful, even though his new owner, the Wakil
Abu Ali, is notoriously easy-going towards his property. Perhaps it’s
the hard work, the beatings, the short lives many slaves face, the
way slave women are used as sexual playthings, or simple white
intransigence, but something about his new life does not sit entirely
well with Aiden. There does not seem to be much that he can do about
his situation.